Renting an Office or Working from Home?

Renting an office or working from home?

Renting an office can bring fiscal advantages: you can deduct various costs, such as rent, renovation costs, gas, water and electricity, as well as office supplies.

But what exactly are the differences in the rules between working from home and renting an office?

And does it matter whether you work from home in an owner-occupied or rented property? YES!

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Conditions for an owner-occupied home‍

The rules for working from home in an owner-occupied property differ from those for a rented property.

For an owner-occupied property, the independence requirement and income requirement are relevant.

Independence requirement: To meet the independence requirement, the workspace must be clearly recognisable as an independent space. The office must have at least its own entrance and sanitary facilities and must be in a state where you could rent it out to others.
Most entrepreneurs therefore add a few square metres or convert their garage with its own external door and its own sanitary corner.

Income requirement: For the income requirement you must earn at least 70% of your income from your workspace at home and spend at least 30% of your working time there. You can demonstrate this by keeping a time record.

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Conditions for a rented property
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Do you have a rented property? Then it is simpler to claim the office space as a deduction. There are two options for this: categorising or splitting in the administration. With categorising, the property is classified as business assets, which is usually the most advantageous option. Administrative splitting is interesting when the workspace covers less than 10% of the total living area.

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For a rented property there are also conditions:
✔ The rent of the property must belong to the business assets, which can be done by stating this in the annual accounts and paying via a business account.

✔ More than 10% of the property must be used for the business if you want to categorise. This is calculated based on square metres of all spaces, including storage. If your desk is in the living room, for example, the entire living space can be attributed to the number of square metres of office.

✔ And you must work from home for at least 10% of the time.

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If the office space meets these rules, it can be classified as business assets. The costs can then be deducted from the profit, including VAT on gas, water, electricity, maintenance and furnishings.

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